- zOMG copy/paste! It's about time! - zOMG Bluetooth stereo support! It's about time! - zOMG MMS! It's about time! - zOMG Tethering! It's about time! - What? No announcement about Flash? APPLE YOU SUXX0RS!!!!!! I'm going to go blog about how you suck on facebook and myspace using my safari browser on my iPhone, then twitter, IM, and email my friends not to buy your phone because it sux without Flash! Then maybe I'll play Trism while listening to my ripped Led Zeppelin MP3s cool off, but you still sux! - Oh look... icanhascheezburger.com has new pictures... shiny!
Q: Bluetooth human input device profile for external keyboards. A: We have nothing to announce.
Considering how they went to great pains to announce individual features of bluetooth that they were using, and avoided talking about bluetooth filesharing, I think they are hinting that bluetooth keyboards are not in the cards at the moment.
Why would you want spam filtering on ANY phone? That's a waste of power on a device which has a limited precious power supply. Hell I wouldn't do it on a laptop, either. Set up IMAP, and do your filtering either server side, or keep your work/home PC logged in and have the email client do it there.
As for printing, how in demand is it for someone to plug in an electronic device that allows you to view the document already to print it to paper? I can't believe the demand is that high. copy/paste, bluetooth, and MMS are higher in demand and two of the three aren't all that necessary. If you need to print because of your eyes, then perhaps an iPhone isn't for you. If you need it for delivery or point of sale, well I just don't see the iPhone as a Point of sale device or durable enough for every day delivery. Maybe some day, but again, I can't believe there is demand.
I wish I had a reference for you, but it has to do with SOX compliance. The 3.0 software is free to iPhone users because it's part of the AT&T contract. For iPod Touch, there's no such contract. Because of some legal accounting obligation under SOX, and because there is no contract for iPod Touch users, Apple has to charge for software upgrades for the iPod touch. This was mentioned by Jobs I believe at tone of Apple's media blitzes last year.
Google creates Chrome to embrace web browsing. Google creates functionality that only works on Chrome, extending functionality of the web to google. Firefox gets extinguished, because Chrome in a lot of ways is just as good as Firefox, but Chrome has this little extra bit
Google has a dominant market share in the web search market... DO NOT put this past even the likes of Google. Watch them incredibly close. The moment they cross, a public outcry should go out to the DoJ to start an investigation right away.
From a legal standpoint, this is why long copywrites are bad. A lot of people look at the legal implications, but I've been a big fan of the creative implications. Instead of trying to create a brand new story and brand new content, the entire movie industry is trying to find ways of rehashing old ideas. 40 years later, instead of a new series, Paramount is trying to milk trek for all it's worth. Andromeda was actually an interesting series. A little crazy at times, not perfect, but it was a new idea, and it was allowed to stand and succeed or fail on it's own.
No one is taking enough risks. Sure, you might think creating the Watchmen movie a "risk" but is it really? You have a guarenteed fanbase who will walk in the door and make you money even if they don't like the movie, because once they have their ticket, they most likely won't ask for a refund if it sucked. Watchmen is riskier than Wolverine or Spiderman, but it's still nothing compared to creating a brand new world from scratch... actually making something new up!
If we could reform the law to cut off all existing copywrites to end in twenty years from now, and then give copywrite to new works for only 20 years, I think we'd break this "monopoly" on content major media corporations have, and they'd be forced to go out and look for new ideas constantly rather than try to rehash the old ones every 15 years for a "new audience," creating this monoculture that somehow Trek is so great that we must continue to remind you of it. Trek in the 60s was brilliant, and ground breaking. Now, it's 40 years old. Let us remember it for what it was, and stop beating us about the head with it, I don't need help remembering it.
In US law, for any company to be a monopoly, it has to be the only player in the market, or have a dominant market share in the US market. Microsoft owns 90% of the desktop operating system market. That's a monopoly. Apple isn't even the #1 phone manufacturer in the US yet. It's getting there, but not yet. It's far from dominant in the cell phone industry.
If you are a monopoly, you can't "bundle" basically, because that means you are using your leverage in one market to take advantage of another. If you aren't a monopoly, then it's up to the market to decide if the bundle you created is a buoy for greater sales, or an anchor that sinks you to the bottom. Microsoft has tied IE to it's OS. It used it's OS dominance to edge out Netscape and not allow anyone to preinstall it on PCs, and edge AOL off PC desktops in preinstalls and forced them to put MSN installs on them instead. That's anticompetitive, because AOL and netscape (no matter how they sucked at the time) could not compete by going to a PC manufacture and offering a better deal. That's not the sole reason for their collapse, but by denying consumers choice, you damaged both these company's businesses.
There are no US laws that explicitly state that bundling is across the board illegal. There are no US laws that state bundling itself is a monopoly practice. There are laws that state bundling is illegal for true monopolies. Once you lesser Slashdot peons who don't understand antitrust law get that thru your thick heads, the sooner the elite of this site will allow you to join our ranks, and be allowed to use the abbreviation/.er and be cool like us;)
If you want to argue about the size of our arsenal that's one thing. I was responding to the flower child that thinks we should get rid of all of our nuclear weapons -- which is clearly not going to happen under even the rosiest of scenarios.
While I do think that ultimately, it would be nice for total nuclear disarmament of all countries, I did not imply dismantling our entire nuclear stockpile, nor do I think that it's possible to do this tomorrow. I was talking strictly about the missiles and warhead with this problem, which I think most people got when they read my comment. Perhaps you could clarify what I said before dismissing this flower child?:)
My comments come thickly laced with irony so don't take me so seriously as to think I want to debate the merits of a nuclear arsenal with you.
Yeah yeah yeah I've heard that stupid mantra before and it's all crap. Let's ignore the fact that ten times as many gun deaths per capita occur in the US than in any other western nation. Let's ignore the fact that by making guns illegal, you make selling them illegal too, so joe shmoe can't just go down to the local gun owner who has no morals and is willing to sell a gun to anyone. Let's ignore the fact that the number one way to get guns in the inner city, which has strict gun control laws is to drive out to the rural areas, where the rules are comparatively lax and gun ownership is somewhat common. Kids nip their parents guns for some cash, someone down on their luck sells a gun to some guy in a bar to make rent that month, etc. Let's ignore the fact that the chances of someone entering your home are low and if they do, they are out to steal something, not kill you. There's no statistics that state that a jealous ex or nut job neighbor will have the exact same chance of obtaining a gun after it's illegal, and to say so is illogical. Some gangs will have guns, but if guns were illegal on a national level, they'd have fewer guns, and overall deaths would go down. There no evidence in any other western country of increased instances of breaking and entering, rape, mugging or anything like that compared to the US.
Guns serve one purpose, to kill. In this country we make this big deal about killing in self defense, in retribution even if someone is merely stealing something, but it's all about creating fear. Fear that you might be attacked and that a gun is your only option. This fear makes us believe this is our only option, if merely to control us or make us buy more guns. Some violence is really horrible, but is it worth taking a life just because someone might hurt you? Is it worth taking a life just because someone wants to steal your wide screen TV? Have you asked yourself why that man would do that? Did you think maybe the elites who run this country want the plebes to fight amongst ourselves rather than go after them for all the lobbying and bad banking and money hoarding they do?
It seems to me the lesson is that you not only need to be smart, but you need to be willing to do the work to find opportunities, and willing to act upon them. Also, you need to have a little luck to be in the right place at the right time.
Not to beat a very bad fanboi cliche to death, but Steve Jobs vs Bill Gates. Steve saw an opportunity to sell a computer to the masses in the 70s and kick start the personal computer market. Bill saw an opportunity to tie his DOS to the IBM PC when he saw more business people wanted the PC over an Apple II. Steve saw the opportunity to create a graphical UI after visiting PARC and find a way to sell it, but wasn't nearly successful this time, because conditions were not in his favor (thanks to Bill Gates well timed opportunity). Bill then copied Steve's project and used his previous well timed success to do what Steve didn't quite have the leverage to do, get the GUI out to the masses.
Also look at Steve recognizing the market for ripping and mixing CDs, and the coming of the MP3, to create a music player at the right time that's easy to use, and to come up with a marketing plan that made everyone want it.
Both these men have skills and experience I'll never have. But they'd be nothing if the opportunity didn't arise. They'd be even less if the opportunity did arise, and no one took advantage of it. They'd just be here like the rest of us pontificating on how some other guy is a genius or not, struggling to install their copy of Ubuntu or something.
I guess my point is that this isn't something entirely new. This sounds like another book about the butterfly effect, so I'm not sure how useful it would be, though I'm sure its interesting entertainment.
You're overly broad statement is attempting to say that anti-trust actions are from the government, and the government is bad, therefore anti-trust actions are bad.
First, you've failed to prove that government is inherently bad just because it's a government. Modern government is made of the people, and is good or bad, depending on the will of the people and the institutions set up by the people to ensure the common good. A government can be very good if good people are willing to invest time in getting elected and do good things, and good people are willing to vote for them.
Second, a government could be, in general, rather bad, but do something good. The US Government gave us roads, the internet, social security, universal primary education for all people, police, firefighters, to name a few things. I think that's rather good. Nowhere in the constitution did it say the government had to do any of that, but they are all universally good things that benefit Americans.
Third, you've completely failed to address the anti-trust action on it's own merits, which have been gone over and over and over in thousands of slashdot articles. Only the ignorant, and blind stubborn libertarians who cling to a warped sense of reality and stupid think that "poor little microsoft should be left alone by the big evil government!"
And now we will have a ton of posts that either bash or IE or stick up for IE. This isn't about IE and its merits
That my friend, is correct.
The EU doesn't care about that, do they? This isn't even about the consumer.
This, my friend, is 10000% incorrect. Anti-trust is exactly about the consumer. For capitalism to work, competition must be preserved and consumers must have choice. MS is a convicted monopolist, and MS has been proven that it exercises it's OS market share to intimidate PC makers to only bundle IE, and because it gives away IE for free, it under cut Netscape who, at the time was switching to a pay model for it's web browser.
This is just a political/corporate game.
That's true, at least for Google and Microsoft, but don't try to lump the EU into that same category. I'm not saying any government, even the EU, is perfect, but I'm sick and tired of people who don't understand trust law not realizing that prosecuting a monopoly is a Good Thing.
And frankly, letting the EU play it (and Google, now) simply because *we* don't like IE is ridiculous. Next thing we know, they'll have to start bundling Notepad++, too, because Notepad has the market cornered;)
Obviously a troll, but I'll bite. First, you say this has nothing to do with the quality of IE, which is absolutely true, so the first part of this sentence is invalidated by that. It's not about if we don't like it, it's about if Microsoft is abusing it's monopoly power. Remember, although the penalty phase was messed up, in the US, Microsoft is a convicted monopolist. Second, your comment about notepad shows again you don't understand monopolies. The monopoly here is in the OS market with windows, and the abuses are using their OS dominance to gain dominance in another market, the web browsing market, which, despite Firefox, they still have a dominant share in. Besides... who's to say microsoft's licensing language doesn't prevent OEMs from installing notepad++? Notepad isn't a powerplayer here, but if the maker of notepad++ and dell wanted to enter into an agreement, and Microsoft said "if you do that I will jack up your licensing fees" then that's abuse of monopoly power. Dell has no choice, and that's a bad thing. That translates into no choice for the consumer.
Besides, so let's say they don't bundle IE... or say they have to bundle a competitor. Which competitor? Firefox? Why not K-Meleon? Safari? Opera? Seamonkey? And hey, what about all those other calculators out there? And what about bundling openoffice.org instead of an Office trial version? And what about...
All very valid points, and I simply reply by saying "yeah that's a good idea, why not?" For the browser at least, since it's essentially required software, install a bunch of different ones, and allow OEMs to create a program which says "hey, which browser do you want to try?" Or, allow OEMs to chose a browser other than IE. But there are other solutions as well. We don't have to worry about the specific solution here because the article makes no mention of a solution, so you just pulled that out of your ass. They haven't gotten to that stage yet.
See, in the old days, MS said to OEMs "You will bundle ONLY IE with windows or we will charge you outrageous licensing fees!" And it worked. IBM said no, and they found out they weren't the 800 lb gorilla any more and had to pay through the nose. Dell complied and they got some of the best prices. However, consumers complain to Dell, and want choice from Dell. Dell's hands are tied, and consumers suffer. Dell has no way to improve the experience for customers and evolve because Dell is bound by Microsoft who demands this. Dell I'm sure would like to offer another browser. Let Dell chose, and thus the consumer judge Dell it on it's own merits. Choice is stifled here, therefore the consumer loses. Microsoft may still be doing this to a degree, despite being a convicted monopolist, and the EU
Hey, don't blame Apple for this, they tried to keep those apps off the app store. But you damn hippie liberal commie slashdotters all insisted that there should be this thing call "freedom" on the app store! Damned if you do... poor Apple!
The judge is not as boneheaded as you think. The judge found Microsoft guilty. The judge even passed sentence. Microsoft appealed the sentence, and then there was a change of administration and the political will to continue the penalty phase was lost, and Microsoft got away with a slap on the wrist.
The boneheads in this case were Bush and the people who allowed him to get elected.
If you want something to cover the length (122.17 ft) and wingspan (78.06 ft) of the shuttle (I'm assuming the tube like device will have a squarish face to it) enough water to fill a 6 inch sheet would be 4768.2951 cubic feet of water! A gallon is.133680555 cubic feet, so that's 35,669.3259 gallons! A gallon of water is 8.33 pounds! That results in 297125.484 lbs. You want to add nearly 150 tons to the shuttle lift off? The shuttle only weighs 120 already! Sure, I'm not including for the fact that water expands when it freezes, but it's not like I can take a keg of water into space and expand it into a 125x80 foot shield.
And if the shield gets hit by something hard enough, it will shatter into shards that don't melt, and become just as deadly at the debris.
And how do you fill a tube like that without having the water instafreeze? Would your pump hoses not freeze? Would the water not freeze in the tube? Do you expect to keep the tube heated until the water is frozen, and if so how do you do that?
Are my calculations off or did you get modded up even a little for a completely crazy idea?
What law says "you must hand out a password to your boss when he requests it or you will be prosecuted as a felon"?
The lawyer in the referenced articles has stated "The response to suspend him was arguably legal. The response to prosecute him is not." That means, if you don't give up a password, you can be suspended or fired, as you could be in any job, but that doesn't mean you can be prosecuted. If you use those passwords for nefarious means after you are fired, then yes you can, but so far the articles don't point to anything Child's did. There have been some wild claims, but InfoWorld has a special report page with articles that seem to call into question the accusations that are being leveled at Childs.
It's illegal to actually use it within the casinos. You can take your cell phone, even an iphone, into the casino. However, they have cameras with tape everywhere. If they catch you looking at your phone repeatedly, they will probably have probably cause to search your person. They can then try to get into your phone look to see if you have the app, and if you do they'll probably charge you right there. I wouldn't be surprised if they are working on a pin cracking software package so they don't have to get your permission. This of course has it's own legal issues, but casinos will err on the side of profits, and they don't care if the court case can't go thru, at least you are out of their casino. Let the courts worry about little things like civil rights. Winning a court case that your rights have been violated is hard against a casino whether or not you did cheat.
Casinos have the right to eject you and ban you from a casino for any reason. I've never experienced this because I don't gamble, but I wouldn't be surprised if they ask you to remove bluetooth headsets before sitting down at a table. If you refuse, bye bye, they don't have to "serve" you, like any private establishment.
However, just for the record, casinos don't beat you up for committing a crime or counting cards (unlike how the movie 21 portrayed it, that was a complete lie), no they don't make you sleep with the fishes any more, and you can only be charged with a crime if that crime is clearly stated in law. Counting in your head is not illegal. Counting using some kind of electronic device, or communicating with someone outside of the table using an electronic device to help you gamble are both illegal.
If anything that the last 30 years of failed american de-regulation have taught us, is that not all government regulations are bad. The mantra that government regulations are bad because they are from the government is silly. You can have smart government, just like you can have dumb government. You can have a smart company, or a dumb company. Regulations aren't there to promote smart or dumb companies. They are just there to encourage companies to be good, while not allowing evil companies to take advantage of consumers, resources, and labor for gains that hurt the populace as a whole.
The rights of a company should not outweight the rights of a consumer when it comes to choice. Right now, I have no choice. If I want a new phone, almost invariably I have to pay for new cables. That has never not happened. I had a cheesy crappy nokia back in 1998, then the palmphone and two treos, and finally an iphone. Even when switching between treos I had to get new cables, phones from the same damn company! That's not a choice, that's a lack of a choice.
Also, considering all those extra cables take up resources to make, and people are probably not properly recycling them, I have an interest in keeping those extras out of landfills. Companies in the US haven't done a good job of telling me where I can recycle them for free.
Of course, there are counter arguments to this, but there's no reason to be dismissing this as "regulation=bad". That era is dead, let it go. The only reason why we aren't in a full depression now is because of government regulations and programs enacted after the great depression which benefit consumers and US citizens.
That's a wives tail that big pharma wants you to believe. Take a look at ATI's profit margin. Now take a look at any of the big pharma's profit margins.
The average total profit margin on these companies' P&L statements is around 30%. That's global, after all factors are considered, including R&D.
Yes, 30 cents of every dollar paid on drugs is pure profit. ATI would kill for that profit margin. No other industry has nearly that much profit. Before the economic downturn, Toyota was something like 6% profit on it's income statement. Yes big pharma has huge research costs, there's no doubt about it, but their prices are still insanely high.
Besides, when all that research is spent on the latest skin care, erection, or anti-baldness pills, or coming up with a reformulation of an old drug that they can charge 1000% markup when the old version only sells for $10, perhaps that R&D is just there to help drive up prices anyway?
Unfortunately, I can easily shoot a huge hole in this with one US law. The driver to the rear must maintain a safe driving distance at all times. If you couldn't see the light, you were too close to the truck in front of you. It's your responsibility to pay attention and if you can't, slow down and look!
Someone mentioned that one might be worried about cars behind you. Unfortunately you can't. By law if you slam into someone from behind, it's your fault. That means if someone slams into you from behind, it's their fault. They should be watching you, and you should be watching what's in front of you.
You get a little sympathy from me because I've been in that situation, where a truck cut off my viewing angle of lights, and because while it was a mistake, in the total view of things it was a minor mistake. However, I learned to hang back. On this exit situation, it sounds like you chose a narrow gap between the car and the truck. Slow down, go behind the car next time, give yourself some room.
And just so you know, 150 FT is 50 yards. At 50 MPH you can cover 50 ft in 2 seconds, and you can easily brake in that time frame to see if the light in front of you is green or not. You were behind a truck not on a road with lights so there is a good chance you were going slower than that. 2 seconds is the legal requirement that you need to be behind the car in front of you. You were moving too fast under the law, sorry.
Unfortunately there are cars behind you, and if their drivers can see the [green] light (because they are farther and their view is not obstructed) they'd have no reason to think that you will be slowing down, and so they might slam right into you.
In the US, drivers are taught to keep a safe distance with the car in front of you, and that it's your responsibility to hang back the appropriate distance. Why? Because 99.999% of rear end collisions are the fault of the person at the rear, not front, and 99.999% of accidents involving rear end collisions place the blame squarely on the driver at the rear, by law. You as the rear driver are supposed to maintain safe driving distance to the car in front of you. The person in front is not responsible for "speeding up" and making sure you have enough braking distance. It doesn't matter if there's a little old lady in front of you doing 35 in a 45 zone, or if the person has got a problem with constantly speeding up and slowing down, as the driver in the rear, it's your responsibility to make sure you have safe driving distance. Both the law and common sense say "drive defensively, stay back, even if the person is a freak." The person may just be a freak, and may be rude, but the law is about safety, just stay back and wait or find a legal and safe way to get around them. Don't tailgate!!
There are some exceptions, most of which I don't know, but anyone who says "the car ahead of me was moving too slow, that's why I hit them" will get shot down by a US judge in a second.
The original poster in this thread couldn't see the light because they were too close to the truck in front of them. It's all about maintaining safe driving distance with the car in front of you. I've had problems were trucks would cut off my viewing angle and I learned that you hang back further so you can see around, especially at poorly designed intersections. He had 150 feet, that's plenty of time to hang back and look.
Slashdot Mirror
- zOMG copy/paste! It's about time!
- zOMG Bluetooth stereo support! It's about time!
- zOMG MMS! It's about time!
- zOMG Tethering! It's about time!
- What? No announcement about Flash? APPLE YOU SUXX0RS!!!!!! I'm going to go blog about how you suck on facebook and myspace using my safari browser on my iPhone, then twitter, IM, and email my friends not to buy your phone because it sux without Flash! Then maybe I'll play Trism while listening to my ripped Led Zeppelin MP3s cool off, but you still sux!
- Oh look... icanhascheezburger.com has new pictures... shiny!
oops... stupid me, didn't post the link correctly.
http://live.gizmodo.com/
I think the answer might be neither. In a Q&A at the end of the demo, someone asked a cryptic question with an equally cryptic answer:
From the Gizmodo live blog:
Q: Bluetooth human input device profile for external keyboards.
A: We have nothing to announce.
Considering how they went to great pains to announce individual features of bluetooth that they were using, and avoided talking about bluetooth filesharing, I think they are hinting that bluetooth keyboards are not in the cards at the moment.
Why would you want spam filtering on ANY phone? That's a waste of power on a device which has a limited precious power supply. Hell I wouldn't do it on a laptop, either. Set up IMAP, and do your filtering either server side, or keep your work/home PC logged in and have the email client do it there.
As for printing, how in demand is it for someone to plug in an electronic device that allows you to view the document already to print it to paper? I can't believe the demand is that high. copy/paste, bluetooth, and MMS are higher in demand and two of the three aren't all that necessary. If you need to print because of your eyes, then perhaps an iPhone isn't for you. If you need it for delivery or point of sale, well I just don't see the iPhone as a Point of sale device or durable enough for every day delivery. Maybe some day, but again, I can't believe there is demand.
I wish I had a reference for you, but it has to do with SOX compliance. The 3.0 software is free to iPhone users because it's part of the AT&T contract. For iPod Touch, there's no such contract. Because of some legal accounting obligation under SOX, and because there is no contract for iPod Touch users, Apple has to charge for software upgrades for the iPod touch. This was mentioned by Jobs I believe at tone of Apple's media blitzes last year.
Sorry.
Google creates Chrome to embrace web browsing.
Google creates functionality that only works on Chrome, extending functionality of the web to google.
Firefox gets extinguished, because Chrome in a lot of ways is just as good as Firefox, but Chrome has this little extra bit
Google has a dominant market share in the web search market... DO NOT put this past even the likes of Google. Watch them incredibly close. The moment they cross, a public outcry should go out to the DoJ to start an investigation right away.
From a legal standpoint, this is why long copywrites are bad. A lot of people look at the legal implications, but I've been a big fan of the creative implications. Instead of trying to create a brand new story and brand new content, the entire movie industry is trying to find ways of rehashing old ideas. 40 years later, instead of a new series, Paramount is trying to milk trek for all it's worth. Andromeda was actually an interesting series. A little crazy at times, not perfect, but it was a new idea, and it was allowed to stand and succeed or fail on it's own.
No one is taking enough risks. Sure, you might think creating the Watchmen movie a "risk" but is it really? You have a guarenteed fanbase who will walk in the door and make you money even if they don't like the movie, because once they have their ticket, they most likely won't ask for a refund if it sucked. Watchmen is riskier than Wolverine or Spiderman, but it's still nothing compared to creating a brand new world from scratch... actually making something new up!
If we could reform the law to cut off all existing copywrites to end in twenty years from now, and then give copywrite to new works for only 20 years, I think we'd break this "monopoly" on content major media corporations have, and they'd be forced to go out and look for new ideas constantly rather than try to rehash the old ones every 15 years for a "new audience," creating this monoculture that somehow Trek is so great that we must continue to remind you of it. Trek in the 60s was brilliant, and ground breaking. Now, it's 40 years old. Let us remember it for what it was, and stop beating us about the head with it, I don't need help remembering it.
In US law, for any company to be a monopoly, it has to be the only player in the market, or have a dominant market share in the US market. Microsoft owns 90% of the desktop operating system market. That's a monopoly. Apple isn't even the #1 phone manufacturer in the US yet. It's getting there, but not yet. It's far from dominant in the cell phone industry.
If you are a monopoly, you can't "bundle" basically, because that means you are using your leverage in one market to take advantage of another. If you aren't a monopoly, then it's up to the market to decide if the bundle you created is a buoy for greater sales, or an anchor that sinks you to the bottom. Microsoft has tied IE to it's OS. It used it's OS dominance to edge out Netscape and not allow anyone to preinstall it on PCs, and edge AOL off PC desktops in preinstalls and forced them to put MSN installs on them instead. That's anticompetitive, because AOL and netscape (no matter how they sucked at the time) could not compete by going to a PC manufacture and offering a better deal. That's not the sole reason for their collapse, but by denying consumers choice, you damaged both these company's businesses.
There are no US laws that explicitly state that bundling is across the board illegal. There are no US laws that state bundling itself is a monopoly practice. There are laws that state bundling is illegal for true monopolies. Once you lesser Slashdot peons who don't understand antitrust law get that thru your thick heads, the sooner the elite of this site will allow you to join our ranks, and be allowed to use the abbreviation /.er and be cool like us ;)
At the risk of "escalating" this discussion... ;)
If you want to argue about the size of our arsenal that's one thing. I was responding to the flower child that thinks we should get rid of all of our nuclear weapons -- which is clearly not going to happen under even the rosiest of scenarios.
While I do think that ultimately, it would be nice for total nuclear disarmament of all countries, I did not imply dismantling our entire nuclear stockpile, nor do I think that it's possible to do this tomorrow. I was talking strictly about the missiles and warhead with this problem, which I think most people got when they read my comment. Perhaps you could clarify what I said before dismissing this flower child? :)
My comments come thickly laced with irony so don't take me so seriously as to think I want to debate the merits of a nuclear arsenal with you.
How about you just decommission the warheads and missiles?
I mean Obama is all about curtailing military spending. Here's a good cut, right? /hippyliberalantiweaponcommentary
Yeah yeah yeah I've heard that stupid mantra before and it's all crap. Let's ignore the fact that ten times as many gun deaths per capita occur in the US than in any other western nation. Let's ignore the fact that by making guns illegal, you make selling them illegal too, so joe shmoe can't just go down to the local gun owner who has no morals and is willing to sell a gun to anyone. Let's ignore the fact that the number one way to get guns in the inner city, which has strict gun control laws is to drive out to the rural areas, where the rules are comparatively lax and gun ownership is somewhat common. Kids nip their parents guns for some cash, someone down on their luck sells a gun to some guy in a bar to make rent that month, etc. Let's ignore the fact that the chances of someone entering your home are low and if they do, they are out to steal something, not kill you. There's no statistics that state that a jealous ex or nut job neighbor will have the exact same chance of obtaining a gun after it's illegal, and to say so is illogical. Some gangs will have guns, but if guns were illegal on a national level, they'd have fewer guns, and overall deaths would go down. There no evidence in any other western country of increased instances of breaking and entering, rape, mugging or anything like that compared to the US.
Guns serve one purpose, to kill. In this country we make this big deal about killing in self defense, in retribution even if someone is merely stealing something, but it's all about creating fear. Fear that you might be attacked and that a gun is your only option. This fear makes us believe this is our only option, if merely to control us or make us buy more guns. Some violence is really horrible, but is it worth taking a life just because someone might hurt you? Is it worth taking a life just because someone wants to steal your wide screen TV? Have you asked yourself why that man would do that? Did you think maybe the elites who run this country want the plebes to fight amongst ourselves rather than go after them for all the lobbying and bad banking and money hoarding they do?
The Darwin Awards have been doing that for us for years.
It seems to me the lesson is that you not only need to be smart, but you need to be willing to do the work to find opportunities, and willing to act upon them. Also, you need to have a little luck to be in the right place at the right time.
Not to beat a very bad fanboi cliche to death, but Steve Jobs vs Bill Gates. Steve saw an opportunity to sell a computer to the masses in the 70s and kick start the personal computer market. Bill saw an opportunity to tie his DOS to the IBM PC when he saw more business people wanted the PC over an Apple II. Steve saw the opportunity to create a graphical UI after visiting PARC and find a way to sell it, but wasn't nearly successful this time, because conditions were not in his favor (thanks to Bill Gates well timed opportunity). Bill then copied Steve's project and used his previous well timed success to do what Steve didn't quite have the leverage to do, get the GUI out to the masses.
Also look at Steve recognizing the market for ripping and mixing CDs, and the coming of the MP3, to create a music player at the right time that's easy to use, and to come up with a marketing plan that made everyone want it.
Both these men have skills and experience I'll never have. But they'd be nothing if the opportunity didn't arise. They'd be even less if the opportunity did arise, and no one took advantage of it. They'd just be here like the rest of us pontificating on how some other guy is a genius or not, struggling to install their copy of Ubuntu or something.
I guess my point is that this isn't something entirely new. This sounds like another book about the butterfly effect, so I'm not sure how useful it would be, though I'm sure its interesting entertainment.
You're overly broad statement is attempting to say that anti-trust actions are from the government, and the government is bad, therefore anti-trust actions are bad.
First, you've failed to prove that government is inherently bad just because it's a government. Modern government is made of the people, and is good or bad, depending on the will of the people and the institutions set up by the people to ensure the common good. A government can be very good if good people are willing to invest time in getting elected and do good things, and good people are willing to vote for them.
Second, a government could be, in general, rather bad, but do something good. The US Government gave us roads, the internet, social security, universal primary education for all people, police, firefighters, to name a few things. I think that's rather good. Nowhere in the constitution did it say the government had to do any of that, but they are all universally good things that benefit Americans.
Third, you've completely failed to address the anti-trust action on it's own merits, which have been gone over and over and over in thousands of slashdot articles. Only the ignorant, and blind stubborn libertarians who cling to a warped sense of reality and stupid think that "poor little microsoft should be left alone by the big evil government!"
Now that the Kindle 2 is finally getting readers to take e-books seriously
*snort* I'm sorry, who's taking the kindle 2 and ebooks seriously? *snicker*
And now we will have a ton of posts that either bash or IE or stick up for IE. This isn't about IE and its merits
That my friend, is correct.
The EU doesn't care about that, do they? This isn't even about the consumer.
This, my friend, is 10000% incorrect. Anti-trust is exactly about the consumer. For capitalism to work, competition must be preserved and consumers must have choice. MS is a convicted monopolist, and MS has been proven that it exercises it's OS market share to intimidate PC makers to only bundle IE, and because it gives away IE for free, it under cut Netscape who, at the time was switching to a pay model for it's web browser.
This is just a political/corporate game.
That's true, at least for Google and Microsoft, but don't try to lump the EU into that same category. I'm not saying any government, even the EU, is perfect, but I'm sick and tired of people who don't understand trust law not realizing that prosecuting a monopoly is a Good Thing.
And frankly, letting the EU play it (and Google, now) simply because *we* don't like IE is ridiculous. Next thing we know, they'll have to start bundling Notepad++, too, because Notepad has the market cornered ;)
Obviously a troll, but I'll bite. First, you say this has nothing to do with the quality of IE, which is absolutely true, so the first part of this sentence is invalidated by that. It's not about if we don't like it, it's about if Microsoft is abusing it's monopoly power. Remember, although the penalty phase was messed up, in the US, Microsoft is a convicted monopolist. Second, your comment about notepad shows again you don't understand monopolies. The monopoly here is in the OS market with windows, and the abuses are using their OS dominance to gain dominance in another market, the web browsing market, which, despite Firefox, they still have a dominant share in. Besides... who's to say microsoft's licensing language doesn't prevent OEMs from installing notepad++? Notepad isn't a powerplayer here, but if the maker of notepad++ and dell wanted to enter into an agreement, and Microsoft said "if you do that I will jack up your licensing fees" then that's abuse of monopoly power. Dell has no choice, and that's a bad thing. That translates into no choice for the consumer.
Besides, so let's say they don't bundle IE... or say they have to bundle a competitor. Which competitor? Firefox? Why not K-Meleon? Safari? Opera? Seamonkey? And hey, what about all those other calculators out there? And what about bundling openoffice.org instead of an Office trial version? And what about ...
All very valid points, and I simply reply by saying "yeah that's a good idea, why not?" For the browser at least, since it's essentially required software, install a bunch of different ones, and allow OEMs to create a program which says "hey, which browser do you want to try?" Or, allow OEMs to chose a browser other than IE. But there are other solutions as well. We don't have to worry about the specific solution here because the article makes no mention of a solution, so you just pulled that out of your ass. They haven't gotten to that stage yet.
See, in the old days, MS said to OEMs "You will bundle ONLY IE with windows or we will charge you outrageous licensing fees!" And it worked. IBM said no, and they found out they weren't the 800 lb gorilla any more and had to pay through the nose. Dell complied and they got some of the best prices. However, consumers complain to Dell, and want choice from Dell. Dell's hands are tied, and consumers suffer. Dell has no way to improve the experience for customers and evolve because Dell is bound by Microsoft who demands this. Dell I'm sure would like to offer another browser. Let Dell chose, and thus the consumer judge Dell it on it's own merits. Choice is stifled here, therefore the consumer loses. Microsoft may still be doing this to a degree, despite being a convicted monopolist, and the EU
Fart applications in the double digits
Hey, don't blame Apple for this, they tried to keep those apps off the app store. But you damn hippie liberal commie slashdotters all insisted that there should be this thing call "freedom" on the app store! Damned if you do... poor Apple!
The judge is not as boneheaded as you think. The judge found Microsoft guilty. The judge even passed sentence. Microsoft appealed the sentence, and then there was a change of administration and the political will to continue the penalty phase was lost, and Microsoft got away with a slap on the wrist.
The boneheads in this case were Bush and the people who allowed him to get elected.
If you want something to cover the length (122.17 ft) and wingspan (78.06 ft) of the shuttle (I'm assuming the tube like device will have a squarish face to it) enough water to fill a 6 inch sheet would be 4768.2951 cubic feet of water! A gallon is .133680555 cubic feet, so that's 35,669.3259 gallons! A gallon of water is 8.33 pounds! That results in 297125.484 lbs. You want to add nearly 150 tons to the shuttle lift off? The shuttle only weighs 120 already! Sure, I'm not including for the fact that water expands when it freezes, but it's not like I can take a keg of water into space and expand it into a 125x80 foot shield.
And if the shield gets hit by something hard enough, it will shatter into shards that don't melt, and become just as deadly at the debris.
And how do you fill a tube like that without having the water instafreeze? Would your pump hoses not freeze? Would the water not freeze in the tube? Do you expect to keep the tube heated until the water is frozen, and if so how do you do that?
Are my calculations off or did you get modded up even a little for a completely crazy idea?
What law says "you must hand out a password to your boss when he requests it or you will be prosecuted as a felon"?
The lawyer in the referenced articles has stated "The response to suspend him was arguably legal. The response to prosecute him is not." That means, if you don't give up a password, you can be suspended or fired, as you could be in any job, but that doesn't mean you can be prosecuted. If you use those passwords for nefarious means after you are fired, then yes you can, but so far the articles don't point to anything Child's did. There have been some wild claims, but InfoWorld has a special report page with articles that seem to call into question the accusations that are being leveled at Childs.
It's illegal to actually use it within the casinos. You can take your cell phone, even an iphone, into the casino. However, they have cameras with tape everywhere. If they catch you looking at your phone repeatedly, they will probably have probably cause to search your person. They can then try to get into your phone look to see if you have the app, and if you do they'll probably charge you right there. I wouldn't be surprised if they are working on a pin cracking software package so they don't have to get your permission. This of course has it's own legal issues, but casinos will err on the side of profits, and they don't care if the court case can't go thru, at least you are out of their casino. Let the courts worry about little things like civil rights. Winning a court case that your rights have been violated is hard against a casino whether or not you did cheat.
Casinos have the right to eject you and ban you from a casino for any reason. I've never experienced this because I don't gamble, but I wouldn't be surprised if they ask you to remove bluetooth headsets before sitting down at a table. If you refuse, bye bye, they don't have to "serve" you, like any private establishment.
However, just for the record, casinos don't beat you up for committing a crime or counting cards (unlike how the movie 21 portrayed it, that was a complete lie), no they don't make you sleep with the fishes any more, and you can only be charged with a crime if that crime is clearly stated in law. Counting in your head is not illegal. Counting using some kind of electronic device, or communicating with someone outside of the table using an electronic device to help you gamble are both illegal.
If anything that the last 30 years of failed american de-regulation have taught us, is that not all government regulations are bad. The mantra that government regulations are bad because they are from the government is silly. You can have smart government, just like you can have dumb government. You can have a smart company, or a dumb company. Regulations aren't there to promote smart or dumb companies. They are just there to encourage companies to be good, while not allowing evil companies to take advantage of consumers, resources, and labor for gains that hurt the populace as a whole.
The rights of a company should not outweight the rights of a consumer when it comes to choice. Right now, I have no choice. If I want a new phone, almost invariably I have to pay for new cables. That has never not happened. I had a cheesy crappy nokia back in 1998, then the palmphone and two treos, and finally an iphone. Even when switching between treos I had to get new cables, phones from the same damn company! That's not a choice, that's a lack of a choice.
Also, considering all those extra cables take up resources to make, and people are probably not properly recycling them, I have an interest in keeping those extras out of landfills. Companies in the US haven't done a good job of telling me where I can recycle them for free.
Of course, there are counter arguments to this, but there's no reason to be dismissing this as "regulation=bad". That era is dead, let it go. The only reason why we aren't in a full depression now is because of government regulations and programs enacted after the great depression which benefit consumers and US citizens.
That's a wives tail that big pharma wants you to believe. Take a look at ATI's profit margin. Now take a look at any of the big pharma's profit margins.
The average total profit margin on these companies' P&L statements is around 30%. That's global, after all factors are considered, including R&D.
Yes, 30 cents of every dollar paid on drugs is pure profit. ATI would kill for that profit margin. No other industry has nearly that much profit. Before the economic downturn, Toyota was something like 6% profit on it's income statement. Yes big pharma has huge research costs, there's no doubt about it, but their prices are still insanely high.
Besides, when all that research is spent on the latest skin care, erection, or anti-baldness pills, or coming up with a reformulation of an old drug that they can charge 1000% markup when the old version only sells for $10, perhaps that R&D is just there to help drive up prices anyway?
Unfortunately, I can easily shoot a huge hole in this with one US law. The driver to the rear must maintain a safe driving distance at all times. If you couldn't see the light, you were too close to the truck in front of you. It's your responsibility to pay attention and if you can't, slow down and look!
Someone mentioned that one might be worried about cars behind you. Unfortunately you can't. By law if you slam into someone from behind, it's your fault. That means if someone slams into you from behind, it's their fault. They should be watching you, and you should be watching what's in front of you.
You get a little sympathy from me because I've been in that situation, where a truck cut off my viewing angle of lights, and because while it was a mistake, in the total view of things it was a minor mistake. However, I learned to hang back. On this exit situation, it sounds like you chose a narrow gap between the car and the truck. Slow down, go behind the car next time, give yourself some room.
And just so you know, 150 FT is 50 yards. At 50 MPH you can cover 50 ft in 2 seconds, and you can easily brake in that time frame to see if the light in front of you is green or not. You were behind a truck not on a road with lights so there is a good chance you were going slower than that. 2 seconds is the legal requirement that you need to be behind the car in front of you. You were moving too fast under the law, sorry.
Unfortunately there are cars behind you, and if their drivers can see the [green] light (because they are farther and their view is not obstructed) they'd have no reason to think that you will be slowing down, and so they might slam right into you.
In the US, drivers are taught to keep a safe distance with the car in front of you, and that it's your responsibility to hang back the appropriate distance. Why? Because 99.999% of rear end collisions are the fault of the person at the rear, not front, and 99.999% of accidents involving rear end collisions place the blame squarely on the driver at the rear, by law. You as the rear driver are supposed to maintain safe driving distance to the car in front of you. The person in front is not responsible for "speeding up" and making sure you have enough braking distance. It doesn't matter if there's a little old lady in front of you doing 35 in a 45 zone, or if the person has got a problem with constantly speeding up and slowing down, as the driver in the rear, it's your responsibility to make sure you have safe driving distance. Both the law and common sense say "drive defensively, stay back, even if the person is a freak." The person may just be a freak, and may be rude, but the law is about safety, just stay back and wait or find a legal and safe way to get around them. Don't tailgate!!
There are some exceptions, most of which I don't know, but anyone who says "the car ahead of me was moving too slow, that's why I hit them" will get shot down by a US judge in a second.
The original poster in this thread couldn't see the light because they were too close to the truck in front of them. It's all about maintaining safe driving distance with the car in front of you. I've had problems were trucks would cut off my viewing angle and I learned that you hang back further so you can see around, especially at poorly designed intersections. He had 150 feet, that's plenty of time to hang back and look.